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Genealogy Blog

The Western Front in France and Belgium - From Muddy Hell to Stunning Beauty

Passing through the serene, colourful countryside of northern France, it’s almost impossible to fathom the horror that came a century before.

Bright yellow, blooming canola fields and immaculate green fields line the winding roads, masking the bloodshed from World War I that will always be connected to these lands. The Western Front in France and Belgium, where 46,000 Australians died between 1914 and 1918, was once a picture of carnage, a battleground of trench warfare described as a “muddy hell” by those who fought there.